Ya-ping Liu

TL;DR: A 2D/2D MoS2/C3N4 heterostructure is explored as an efficient and durable NRR electrocatalyst at ambient conditions and shows conspicuously improved NRR performance with an NH3 yield and a high Faradaic efficiency.

TL;DR: In this paper, the CoO quantum dots (QDs, 2-5 nm) on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were used for N2 reduction reaction (NRR) catalysts.

Abstract: Electrocatalytic N2 reduction reaction (NRR) represents a sustainable and promising technology for producing NH3 at ambient conditions. Herein, we demonstrated that Mo-doping could change the MnO2 from an inert material into one that can efficiently and robustly catalyze NRR in neutral media. The developed Mo-doped MnO2 nanoflowers (Mo-MnO2 NFs) exhibited a significantly enhanced NRR performance with an NH3 yield of 36.6 μg h−1 mg−1 (-0.5 V) and an FE of 12.1 % (-0.4 V), far outperforming undoped MnO2 NFs and comparing favorably to most reported NRR catalysts. Density functional theory calculations revealed the electron-deficient character of Mo dopants that delivered multi-functions for NRR enhancement: (1) inducing a defect level to promote the conductivity of MnO2, (2) serving as the key NRR active sites, (3) activating the inert Mn sites for enhancing the intrinsic NRR activity of MnO2, (4) retarding the binding of Lewis acid H+ to suppress the hydrogen evolution reaction.

TL;DR: In this article, the nitrogen vacancies (NVs) with S dopants in graphitic C3N4 were filled with S-NV to achieve a high S concentration of 5.2 at.% with an NH3 yield of 32.7 μg h−1 mg−1 and a Faradaic efficiency of 14.1 % at −0.4 V.

TL;DR: In this article, Fe-doping was found to induce the morphological change of CeO2 from crystalline nanoparticles to partial-amorphous nanosheets which contained abundant oxygen vacancies (VO), resulting in more exposed active sites and accelerated electron transport.